Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 - An Affordable, Future-Proof Graphics Card That Runs Latest Games

Bioshock 2 (DX10)

Another sequel shows up in our testing, this one pits you in an undersea utopia gone horribly wrong. The engine is based off of the Unreal engine and offers us some DX10 surfaces to help increase the rendering load. For testing I ran the level from the beginning of the game until you find Dr Tenenbaum. Settings are shown below.

Well what did you expect from a TWIMTBP game? The GTX570 is still in its place behind the 580 though, so things are certainly firming up with the 570 and the marketing position that nVidia wanted to put it in.

Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 is another in the post-apocalyptic genre. This one takes place in the year 2033 20 years after a terrible event took place that almost wiped out mankind. The survivors took refuge in metro stations in Moscow. Now you must venture out to prevent the death of the few remaining people left.

The game itself plays a lot like Stalker; it is slow and filled with mutated horrors (4A games, was founded by developers that worked on the X-Ray Engine used in STALKER). For our testing we played for 30 minutes starting with your exit from the station. Settings are shown below.

Ok, I have to say this. It was nice to finally play this game with something resembling a good frame rate at minimum. I felt like I was back playing Crysis. However both the nVidia GPUs do a great job here with the GTX570 coming close to the 32FPS make for its minimum performance.

Just Cause 2 (DX11)

This one is plain cheesy, but is a decent one for third person action. It is also a DX9 console port. The game put you as a CIA operative looking to regain some lost data cards and destroying everything in your path. The graphics are ok, but the AI and general story are terrible.

For Just Cause (with the DX11 extensions) we find that the GTX570 does well again. It is right behind our overclocked EAH5870. This is not a bad showing at all.

Gaming conclusions

We have to say that the GTX570 has shaped up to be what we were expecting it to be. It is an upper-end GPU that is designed to fill the performance gap between the GTX580 and the GTX470. We see from the gaming performance here that it can certainly handle the demands of most of today’s popular games without too much of a strain.

We also have noticed an increase in image quality. nVidia has returned to what really matters to most gamers. Sure amazing frame rates a are nice, but once you hit a certain level it is overkill. They have shifted focus and are working on improving the look and feel of the rendered images as well as the frame rate. This is nothing but good news for gamers.

Value

According to everything we have heard the GTX570 will hit the streets around $349.99. This puts it right in line with the market it is aimed at. The performance level is on par with the cost as well. Of course this is not a “set in stone” price as some OEMs will add their own tweaks and swag with their versions that will cause the price to vary somewhat. However that does not kill the value of the GPU. I think that nVidia has overcome a serious hurdle with the new GF110 GPU and have decided to keep the price in line with the market (which is a smart move).

Fional thoughts

The GTX570 is aimed at a very interesting segment of the market. This segment is populated by people that want good solid performance but do not have a ton of income (or the sense not to spend it all on a GPU) as such the people looking to buy this level of GPU are much pickier than your “I have to have the best” buyer or even the value minded buyers. To court this buyer you have to show good value for the product along with some head room to handle things ahead in the road map. I think nVidia has done that with the GTX570.

It is a card that can handle current games and looks to have the head room to handle the ones coming out later this year and early next as well. Although I have not always been impressed with nVidia and feel that they could have executed a little better on the GF100 (and other things) I am impressed with the recovery they have pulled off with the GF104 and the GF110.